A Reservation to the Policy

In a minor deviation from the domains of fantasy and the going-ons of my life that occupy my blog space, today I write about the recent developments on reservation. It is fairly serious stuff so I can only offer my apologies to those looking forward to a bit of fun. Also it is going to be very, very long.

My initial reaction on hearing of the move to reserve 27 per cent of seats in institutes of higher education for “Other Backward Classes” was one of disbelief. I was instantly reminded of the year when I for the first and only time in m life taken to the streets to protest against Mandal v 1.00. The year was 1991. I was 13, outraged, affected and endangered by the “developments”. Of course since then things have changed. I am a lot more inert, lackadaisical. My second thought was even if they get through how will they ever manage to clear Quantitative Techniques-1. Nothing matters much, nothing much matters.

This time around however, I realized that my initial reaction had been stupid, and out of place of a man turning thirty later this year. But that later. I am not here to write about the (de)merits of the issue. Enough is going to be said, and some very compelling arguments are likely to be put forth by both sides. First, I shall just write a couple of personal experiences.

I personally know only three persons who availed of the reserved seats and managed to complete their education in a single attempt. And that speaks a lot for a man of 29. None of them were deprived by any means. The first, son of a senior Delhi bureaucrat, joined IIT, D in Computer Engineering. While the temptation must have been great, he realized that he by no means could compete with the demi-gods who populated the benches of that class and within a month quit to join the same course in DCE. Nevertheless, he was smart and broadly intelligent and now works for a top US firm and lives happily with an American wife in Northern California. The second was the son of my Dad’s tribal colleague, who had lived in Delhi all his life. Joined Chemical Engineering in IIT D, went on to work on a Schlumberger oil rig somewhere in the Persian Gulf. The third was an exceptionally bright classmate of mine from my crème-d-la crème public school, who refused to take any chances, produced a fake certificate from her native village collector in Assam, went to IIT D again, and then IIM A and now sells soap in a top-tier FMCG firm. I neither went to IIT D or IIM A and I have nothing against the three. They did well for themselves, and so did I in my own meager ways. I wish them well.

There are those who argue that the reason why most quota students don’t do well in higher education is because the curriculum is in English- a language of the elite in our country, and thus a natural advantage to the general category. For such arguments I shall offer another personal experience. I went to an engineering college in a village in Gujarat with an extremely vernacular set of students. The curriculum was in English and hugely technical at that. I got straight As in all courses that year as the rest of the class spent their time translating class notes to Gujarati. However, the tables were turned very soon, as the rest of the diligent Gujarati class picked up the language through the dint of their hard work. My advantage disappeared and so did my rank. Somehow, I finished second at the end of four years, way behind a guy who had never studied English before he came here, and marginally ahead of another such girl. But I should mention that not one of the guitar swinging, Floyd chanting tribal students managed to get past their first semester courses. Soon they joined the ranks of academic outlaws for the rest of the years I spent there.

But today when I see this subject being discussed on TV in talk shows, I see certain things that I didn’t back then in 199- probably only because my stakes in the matter are much lower. At least, till the same applies to jobs in the private sector. I see the reactions of a predominantly “upper caste” audience to their minority counterparts and am filled with solid self-doubt. We as a generation were taught about India’s glorious history for years at a stretch. We were fed with the greatness of our kings, emperors and freedom fighters. They were stories of valour, greatness, of sacrifice and filled us with pride. The caste system appeared only as a footnote in a boring Civics textbook, and at a time by when we were already heady with our bubbly past. In the college years we were fed with pipe dreams of the Wild West, of a student visa, a Scholarship, and of GRE and GMAT, and dollar salaries after all that.

More recently, we’ve had everyone and their mother telling us the India Shining story. With well-padded pockets, fast cars and air-conditioned homes, who in their right minds has the time to ponder upon issues such as social inequality and injustice- about that footnote from the yesteryears? We were too busy digging our fingers in the sacks of gold, and to spend the money on things we didn’t need fuelled by ads we didn’t really see. About three years back, I cancelled my subscription to the Economic and Political Weekly – my only link to the grass root social reality of the country and with it vanished whatever little remained of my social conscience.

Given this context it is understandable that today’s urban youth considers a move such as this merely divisive and regressive (I don’t entirely disagree with). Unfortunately, its not quite as simple. It is really something else. A decade of arguably superficial prosperity cannot wipe away a millennium of old social framework. Today’s urban and to an extent rural opulence to a great extent serves to distract from India’s dismal political performance. At some point of time, we have to stop looking the other way (yes, yes) and pay up for the actions of generations gone by. The social deprivation, which has been consolidated for a thousand years, cannot be wished away just that like that. Yes, we have established great institutions of learning and industry. Yes, we have at least on paper enforced land reform- actually the implementation bit is true only of West Bengal. Yes, we have great socio-economic reform projects sanctioned. But there remains the implementation dilemma- the problem of access. Reservation is often argued with meritocracy but when 99 per cent of the people who clear the JEE have been to coaching classes to reach there, one must spare a thought for those who have no wherewithal to pay up school fees. One wonders whether they’ll ever be able to cough up the dough for FIITJEE and IMS. Will Dr. Bansal of Kota make an exception for even his own gardener’s son? Which brings me to my next point. That of who are really Backward Class and the entire economic aspect of the issue.


My Mum teaches in a state-run school in New Delhi. Most of her students are extremely poor, not being able to afford even the token two rupees a month school fees. Children of Dhobis, gardeners, rickshaw pullers, vegetable vendors, sweepers and scavengers- the lot. Most of whom are sent to school for the free meals and the wool for the sweaters given once a year. I have never attended any of her classes but given that she was the one responsible our tutelage at home (public school unlike public health is a fun experience); and since me and my sister (a gold medallist onco-surgeon) turned out quite nicely; and since my parents come from the compassionate, hard-working, honest stock I can only assume that she spares no effort at that school. But recently all sixty students in one of her classes failed, among other subjects in mathematics- something my Mum ensured that we took seriously and were good at.

In the witch-hunt that ensued, my very stressed and upset mother insisted that she had no hope in hell to fight the system which sends a child from a school to the nearest scavenging dump or to a far away subzi-mandi. The kind, which misses school for a month to do the housework as their malnourished mother, recovers slowly from her seventh childbirth in a dysfunctional public hospital. Who only gets one meal a day, the one given for free at school. Who has no electricity, and whose father comes home drunk and ensures that there is absolutely no environment or motivation for homework. If this is the situation in the capital of the country, I dread to think about what things must be like elsewhere.

The limited point that I am trying to make in this overtly verbose post is that reservation is hardly the panacea to entangle the mess of our social fabric that any way predates the Dark Ages. However, it definitely is the one that creates maximum electoral impact. It is at best a sexy headline, with no content to back it up. Which is probably why even after close to sixty years of having intensive reservation the poor and the backward remain just where they were- in the dumps. And of course while all other social reform measures are expensive, there need not be any additional budgetary allocation towards reservation. So while such a move serves the purpose of grabbing headlines and votes, the entire political and bureaucratic system can continue lining their pockets from the lavish spend on other irrational social schemes that are supposed to serve to eliminate this inequality. Of course I do have this debatable notion that a long-term solution to India’s caste system fuelled social inequality does not augur well for the future of Indian polity. It basically takes the piss out of the whole thing. Really, I see little future of a resolution if it is left to politicians to sort out this mess. Small question- why doesn’t someone shoot all our politicians in the gut? Social reform is long overdue in our country and will probably remain that way in my lifetime. Especially, because more than anything else caste and inequality have assumed in our country huge political contours.

Nearly fifteen years back I had taken the streets on this matter. I am not sure I would do it again. Today a large OBC section of the audience in an NDTV talk show walked out threatening to settle matters in the streets. Even more worrisome is that one prominent caste leader called Whatsizname, speaks of doing the same thing on national TV- and I see a divide coming up, in our schools, in our colleges and in our workplaces. Perhaps a civil war. But I guess in the end everyone will just get over it and the unreserved category will just work twice as hard, or leave the country and seek fortunes abroad. I will also soon switch channels to watch the Man United and Arsenal game. Man U will go on to win that 2-0. I will forget and so will NDTV and resume their near 24-hour coverage of the Lakme Fashion Week instead. Who cares? After all “Yahan pe toh sab chalta hai- char ke seat mein chhai log baith jayenge. Yeh toh apne khoon mein hain. Thoda aur adjust kar lenge!”